Bitter
by 0ri
Summary: A brief timeline through the life of Sumeragi Subaru. [1999 word challenge]


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B**i**t_t_e**r  
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By: 0ri

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Subaru liked Tokyo. It was a more then a little frightening, yes – and the people were so much taller then him, that was true, yet – it was so wonderfully crowded, stuffy with human life and colored in neon signs that blinked with optimistic advertising. It was just – so _lively_ – he adored it. It was so much different then the formality he was used to, so much different from the Japanese traditions he was accustomed with.

Suddenly, his grandmother stopped walking near a park, and was speaking to a stranger – something boring and formal, Subaru was sure, and he tilted his head up, squinting into the sunlight as he stared at the massive structures. Never in his life had he seen such monstrous buildings…

"I need to go somewhere," His Obaa-chan suddenly said, and turning away from the stranger she had been speaking with to address Subaru, her countenance of an odd, disconcerted concern. "Stay right here, alright, Subaru-san?"

"Okay, Obaa-chan." Subaru answered with a tiny smile. He never dared disobeying her. She nodded in relief – looked back at the man, and began to follow him down the street.

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Oh, what had he done wrong again? Another mistake, and the entire meal would be completely ruined – they were all supposed to have a nice dinner together, and he had promised to cook a decent meal and _yet_ -- Subaru jumped with an 'eep!' when sauce splashed up into his face _again_. He dropped the spatula with a start, and his palm jolted to his cheek, covering the assaulted skin. The fire alarm soon went off.

Then, quite abruptly the fire alarm died, and two arms came around his body in a whisper of touch. Subaru's heart stopped, and he looked up at the familiar features, or tried to. Seishirou's lips were against his ear - his mouth curved into his usual feline smile, right against his skin. He nearly shuddered.

Seishirou chuckled, and Subaru could feel it, in a small reverberation against his body. His face turned red with embarrassment – at least, he_thought_ it was embarrassment.

Seishirou ran his hand up his arm, traveling down like a stream of cool water, and entwined their fingers together: Seishirou's larger hand covering Subaru's smaller one, guiding it. He moved it over to the pan's handle so that he could help Subaru move it onto another stove, with a gentle, slow sweep of motion.

Neither were eager to part.

"I-I – I ruined it, didn't I?" Subaru voiced, finally unable to stand the suffocating silence.

Seishirou chuckled again. "There's plenty of time to cook another meal. Would you like some help, this time?" Subaru felt the hold around his body tighten, lovingly, encouragingly, he wasn't entirely sure what – but it made him feel safe and _wanted_. He smiled.

"I'd like that."

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It was dawn. Dawn was always beautiful, even in the damnable city of Tokyo, where car exhaust and air pollution blotched the colors of the sky – like a careless child who had gone over a piece of artwork with charcoal-coated hands.

Lilac and red streamed through from the windowpane, outlining the old carpeted floors in brilliant hues.

Subaru always left the apartment barren, with the exception of a single television – which he only used to watch the news. He only watched the news because it occasionally mentioned people who had "mysteriously disappeared" – offhandedly lending him clues to find the man who had taken his soul and his sister's life.

But this evening he could not bring himself to turn on the television. He slouched over the deteriorating, uncomfortable couch the apartment had come with (he had never bothered with buying a futon) and cocooned himself in his overly large sweater. It had grown bigger, in the past view weeks he had owned it. In fact, all his clothing had grown strangely larger, to the point where he had to buy belts for his pants - something he had absolutely loathed doing.

The window had been left open, but Subaru was too numb to get up and close it. The sun sank away into blackness; until all illumination was gone and he was left alone, ill and cold. The wind crept inside, and it chilled his skin until his fingernails turned a bruise-purple color. The couch smelt of cats – Subaru burrowed further in his sweater – he hated animals.

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Kamui's lips were cotton-candy pink, and Subaru wondered if they were just as sweet. The boy was leaning towards him, staring up at him, his mauve eyes nervous and apprehensive; eager yet unable to express it, in a way that was so childish, so naïve is was beautiful. Kamui was beautiful, a person so beautiful Subaru feared that if he held him, or touched him too much, the boy would turn into stone. The thought of it made his stomach twist with nausea and burning self-hatred. Everything he touched died.

"Subaru… Subaru I—" Subaru hated it when Kamui spoke his name, if just because Hokuto had been the only other human being to speak his name without a prefix. But he could never tell the teenager that.

And how desperately he wanted to forget his past, how desperately he wanted his pain to be erased in Kamui's encompassing, loving touch, but he knew he would destroy the boy. He had too many woes and he knew he would never heal; he would only spread the pain to those around him, like a plague.

"I'm sorry, Kamui." And he stood from the bench at CLAMP campus, made to turn – Kamui grabbed hold of the end of his shirt, halting him. His breathe halted with this motion, and his lungs strangled up with nervousness.

"Please… Subaru. I… I can't stand it, to see you, all alone, in so much pain. I can help you – I can help you forget him –"

Subaru heart exploded with a powerful beat as he noticed, abruptly – a hawk, perched on a low tree branch, its head tilted to the side in a mock-smirk, with an almost cryptically sing-song pose to its stance. Its head tilted back up, and it flexed its wings lazily, turned away, and took flight.

There was no magical aura to the animal, yet…

Subaru shook his head, and turned to look at Kamui – who was staring up at him, his eyes in limbo of vertigo; on the verge of either extreme pain or extreme happiness.

"Kamui…" Subaru murmured. "Let me go."

Kamui's face crumpled in agony, and his hand fell away like a dead flower.

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There was nothing left. Subaru had thought he had lost everything, but Seishirou had showed him what loosing everything truly meant. Just when he'd thought he'd finished burying his grave, Seishirou had handed him a shovel and told him to dig deeper.

He was no where. Lying on the floor, or ground, he didn't know. The red of Seishirou's blood was drying into an ugly tree-bark brown; the gleaming, rose-red of it fading, fading… He no longer had consciousness, yet his eyes were opened as he gazed at the dulling color. Impossibly, amazingly, his soul was dulling with it, dropping deep within his body and shrinking into nothing. He didn't realize he had still had a soul; did not realize it was still possible for him to feel grief. His eyes stung, and his face was wet. He wondered if it was raining.

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He watched himself in the mirror, and smirked. Seishirou was still alive – could still live. He then frowned, perturbed, annoyed with the fact that one of his eyes was green. He contemplated clawing it out, but a knife would serve as a better substitute over fingernails - besides, he didn't like getting blood under his fingernails. It was impossible to clean.

And damn, his gloves had been ruined, yet again, in another killing. He tsked' at the stains, and removed each glove meticulously, careful to not get blood anywhere else as he set them in the sink. He then lent over, and turned the faucet on, jerking it on its right side so it would be shockingly cold. He put his hands beneath the water, closed his eyes, and smiled bitterly as the freezing slapped his skin, snaked between his fingers, coated the top of his hands and palms; so cold it _burned_. He swallowed. It felt _good_, if just because he could feel it.

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The world was ending. Japan was hardly occupied by "Japanese citizens" anymore; rather foreigners who were attempting to help the last of the civilians and "clean up" the nation, yet to no avail. It was rather difficult to reconstruct buildings when more earthquakes struck and toppled them back down to the earth, killing the foreign workers who had left their homelands to offer aid. Humanity was thinning out.

In a few months time, Japan's population had shrunk from an estimated 130 million to an "estimated" 10 million. The United Nations (so many people had died – including politicians – that the country was now lacking a government) still had absolutely no clue whatsoever how many lives had been lost. It was impossible to sit around and count the bodies, when more earthquakes were hitting and more were dying. The people who tried evacuating ran into strange problems. Airplanes with no mechanical problems crashed. Ships and boats alike simply exploded on the spot or even vanished; those had been assumed to have sunk on the way.

Everything had truly begun to change when the Kamui of the Dragons of Heaven had befallen. The earthquakes began to hit all over the country (Tokyo was already in ruins): Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, had been the first hits. With them, an old women he had known long ago who still lived in the past had died, and he had felt nothing. After that, he'd lost count of how many earthquakes had hit, as there were barely any functioning televisions around anymore. He'd heard from a passing stranger – amazing, that he would pass anyone in Tokyo – that China and Russia were experiencing earthquakes, along with Australia, and the coast of California. He supposed it was supposed to go out like a domino effect – with the countries closest to Japan falling first.

The Sakurazukamori wondered if this was a good or a bad thing. Without humans, the tree would have no food – and everyone was bound to die_soon_. The idea of feeding himself to the tree made him smirk. He swung his feet back and forth as he sat on what remained of Tokyo Tower. It was now the highest point of the shattered city.

"Magnificent, isn't it." A voice whispered to his right. The Sakurazukamori didn't like the Kamui, as the man often disturbed his thoughts, along with breaking the constant solstice of silence his ears were now used to. "It will be beautiful – soon, trees will spring up from the debris, and flowers will bloom. The sky will clear, and the pollution in the ocean will disintegrate until it sparkles with transparency. Would you like that, Sakurazukamori?" The man turned towards him, his face lit by illumination, yet it was empty of excitement or happiness.

The Sakurazukamori turned to the Kamui; he couldn't quite see him, having one blind eye. "You know very well I don't care what happens to this soil."

Kamui's eyes glistened with a strange emotion, and his mouth curved into a smile of malice.

"Will you miss it, _Subaru_?"

The Sakurazukamori watched him with a countenance of disparagement. Had the teenager finally gone mad? Subaru Sumeragi had died a long, long time ago, when a bridge that had once existed had fallen.

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End file.
